A short walk at Sidwood on Thursday afternoon provided a glimpse of a tiny copper-coloured butterfly. Further views followed until, as my awareness of their jizz grew, they appeared be be all around me and I knew I was looking at Small Skippers.
Northumberland is largely coloured-in on their distribution map, although I understand that this northern expansion of their range has only taken place in recent years. Being small and flittish, they were quite a challenge to photograph but their settling on Common Knapweeds to feed made the job a little easier.
Other sightings included Painted Lady, Green-veined White, Ringlet and Meadow Brown butterflies.
3 comments:
Lovely images Emma.
Beautiful shots Emma.
They are dainty little things aren't they.
Small skippers are super little butterflies. I can still remember the excitement when they were first found in my local nature reserve at Witton-le-Wear in Durham, about 25 years ago...it's wonderful to see how well they expanded their range northwards, along with speckled woods, ringlets and commas, which were all either extinct in Durham when we first came here 35 years ago. There's always plenty of wildlife bad news about, but the range expansion of these species is a reason to be cheerful!
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